Israeli strikes on Iran a huge challenge for Trump

The series of airstrikes by Israeli military jets against Iran’s nuclear sites poses a huge challenge for President Trump. The president has made it clear he does not want the United States to be involved in any more wars, at least not ones which other nations should be able to prosecute themselves. He told Tehran that the US was not involved in any way with Israel’s decision to attack the nuclear sites, even though the devastating bombing raids were in the interests of the United States because Trump and his predecessors all said they would never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb. The Israeli strikes will never completely eliminate the nuclear facilities because the most secret plants are about half a mile down beneath concrete and reinforced steel. The damage done by the Israeli raids will put back Iran’s nuclear programme by a significant amount, and that will suit the US and the Trump administration. However, if the intention is to destroy Iran’s whole nuclear project, then at some time it will require the US to be involved militarily, if diplomacy fails, because only the US has the weapons to penetrate that far down into the nuclear bunkers to destroy them. So what will Trump do? Will he join Israel in finally removing the nuclear threat posed by Iran? Or will he push ahead with diplomatic pressure? The answer is that Trump will probably do everything he can to avoid what could be a catastrophic war. The Middle East is in enough turmoil without having a full--scale war between Israel and Iran. And the US is the only country with the power and influence to stop the conflict from breaking out into a more serious conflagration. One can only hope that every ounce of US diplomatic effort is deployed to bring this latest crisis to an end. However, there is no question that it is in the interests of the whole Middle East region that Iran never succeeds in developing nuclear weapons. The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is so terrifying it is to be hoped that whatever the Israeli airstrikes achieve they will make Tehran and its leaders give up any ambition to go down this dangerous route. This is where the US can and will play a pivotal role, making it clear to Tehran that it will face future military strikes if it continues to develop the capability to build nuclear weapons. However, for the moment, the confrontation between Israel and Iran presents another major challenge for the Trump administration. Even though the president wants to avoid wars, it seems he can’t escape the consequences of conflicts waged by other countries, especially Israel which is one of the most important allies for the US. Whatever happens in the next few weeks, the US will want to protect Israel from retaliation by Iran and that means the US will be a participant in a war that could spread throughout the Middle East.